by Matthew Hart
I followed the crimson carpet into the lobby, an expanse of rose-colored marble. Dark, old chests and antique chairs. A chandelier glowed with a soft amber light. At the far end of the lobby, near the bank of bronze elevator doors, a sleepy concierge in a dark gray suit came out from behind his desk.
“Sir?” he raised his eyebrow in the signature expression of gatekeepers everywhere.
“Lime,” I said, flipping open my Treasury ID with the gold shield and holding it beside my face for a quarter-second before I snapped it shut.
“I’ll call up,” he said, picking up the phone.
“Let’s make it a surprise,” I said, and took the phone from his hand. I put it back in the cradle, gripped his upper arm and pulled him into an open elevator.
I pressed the penthouse button. The car began its dignified ascent.
“Will the door open when we get there?” I had the baton in my hand and he was staring at it. Wide awake now.
“No,” he said. “You have to punch in the code.”
Beside the floor buttons was a small numeric keypad.
“What’s the sequence?”
“I don’t know,” he stammered.
I gave him a jab. “See if you can guess.”
The elevator eased to a stop. I punched in the code he gave me and the door slid open with a loud pong.
The elevator closed behind me. I was in a large atrium. A staircase rose along one wall to a gallery that surrounded the entrance hall. On the floor where I stood, an archway led into a series of connected rooms. Even in a huge apartment, someone would have heard that elevator sound. A door slammed somewhere nearby and I heard footsteps coming, fast.
I opened the nearest of two doors and stepped into a closet full of coats, and got the door shut just as the footsteps arrived. He was breathing heavily, so probably a big guy.
I put my ear to the door. No more footsteps, but he was moving. I could follow the sound of his breaths. Silently I extended the baton and listened.
I put myself in his position. Had somebody come out of the elevator? His working assumption had to be yes. Where were they? Not enough time to get up the stairs, and he had come through the only other way into the apartment. If there was an intruder, he was behind one of two doors. He picked the wrong one.
The second I heard him yank the other door open I burst from the closet and took a swipe with the baton. He was fast for a big man. I just grazed him, drawing a bright red line across his forehead.
He was taller and heavier than me, and from the way he placed his feet, with a quick, agile step, I thought he might be faster too, so I came in right away and took another cut at his head. While he was grabbing for the baton, I got a good, hard kick at his knee.
The steel toe caught the bottom edge of his kneecap. He roared with pain and fell back. Instead of throwing myself on him and going for a neck hold and choking him unconscious, as I should have, I tried to stamp his face. He dodged it, got hold of the baton, and wrenched it from my hand.
He rolled aside, taking a savage strike at my ankles. I lost my balance and crashed into a table, shattering it and smashing my head against the wall. He was on me like a spider, pinning me, punching, digging at my face with the grip of the baton. I felt my lip tear open. I got a thumb in his eye, but he still had the baton. He was cocking his arm for a strike when a voice boomed, “Vasily!” A stream of Russian followed.
He punched me again on the side of the head, frisked me, and found the Ruger. He got to his feet, grunting with pain. He gripped the baton in one hand and with the other leveled the Ruger at my stomach.
Lime stood halfway down the staircase, posed like a figure in a painting. I couldn’t see too well, my vision blurred from the punch. Was that a dressing gown? He came quickly down the stairs. It floated out behind him in a stream of peacock silk.
He flowed across the room. Under the dressing gown he wore pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. Bare feet. He had a battered, handsome face with bullet-hole eyes. Thick hands with knuckles that looked like rocks under the skin.
He almost managed the look of unruffled composure he was struggling for, but anger ate into the veneer like acid. My ID had fallen out. Lime snapped another line of Russian at the guard. He picked it up and handed it to Lime, who flipped it open and studied it. His face hardened. He extended his arm toward me, the leather folder held between two fingers.
“Tell your guy to put the gun down and back away,” I spluttered through my torn lip. “You’re both under arrest for attacking a federal officer. Don’t make it worse for yourself.”
He looked at me with contempt.
“Really, Mr. Turner. Is that the best you can do?” He forced a bitter smile onto his face. “One man. Armed with a pistol and a fighting stick. Government ID. Yet strangely you appear to be alone.”
“You’re not stupid enough to bet on that,” I said, spraying drops of blood.
The smile flaked from his face as he studied me. The Treasury badge had stung him. We were hounding him, closing his accounts and freezing his assets. Even the palatial apartment, the property of a numbered company—we were coming for that too.
He shook his head slowly. “It’s not my stupidity that’s at issue here. It’s yours.” He kept his eyes fixed on me while he calculated what to do. “There is no one with you. You have no warrant, or you would have shown it.” He frowned. “This is personal.”
Lime had a thin, slightly crooked nose with a scar across the bridge. In a story that appeared when he bought the penthouse, Vanity Fair had called him “dashing.” They’d also described him as a “passionate collector,” making a big deal about the $80 million he’d paid at auction for a foot-long Hans Voortlander sculpture of an erect penis, cast in lead crystal and studded with 5,228 tiny diamonds. The reporter either had to say he’s a whack job or a connoisseur, and ticked box number two.
He barked a word at the bodyguard and went swirling off across the room, the dressing gown rippling in his wake. The guard jammed the baton into my ribs. I struggled to my feet, trying to look even more pathetic than I was. He wasn’t buying. He stood far enough away to give himself room to swing the baton. Plus he had the Ruger.
I followed Lime through a hall with cream-colored walls. Illuminated by tiny spotlights in the ceiling hung Lime’s collection of Russian icons. Saints in bejeweled robes gazed out at the twenty-first century from mournful eyes. The Virgin Mary clasped a chubby Christ. The child stood with his feet planted on her lap and regarded the world with an irritated expression. Maybe it was the Voortlander penis that bothered him. It sparkled like a pagan fetish on a table in the center of the room.
Lime crossed the gleaming parquet, ran up a flight of stairs, and pushed through a door that seemed to lead straight out into the sky. The clouds were right there, coasting above New York City on their way to sea. The room wrapped around two sides of the penthouse. Central Park and the Manhattan skyline spread out like a tourist poster. Glass doors opened onto a brick terrace. A boxwood hedge ran inside the iron railing.
Cool morning air flowed in through an open door. The dressing gown billowed as he made his way to a sofa. His anger wrestled with confusion in his face.
“What is this? I get that you are vengeful, dull-witted people. That’s what fits you for your work. But this,” he waved his hand at me in a gesture of revulsion, “this is something else.” His face was pale. “There’s nobody with you. You have no authority. I know who you are. You are a lawless person.” His eyed burned.
“Call the cops,” I sputtered. My mouth was a rubbery mess. “Let’s see how they treat you when I tell them I came up here to investigate the murder of an agent and an assault on a school, and your goon attacked me.”
His eyes were hard and unblinking, like a snake’s. He was clenching and unclenching his fists. The knuckles were swollen. At the end of the room were punching bags and a steel frame with weights. Lime was a devotee of mixed martial arts, a cage fighter. That had been in Vanity Fair too.
/> “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said in disgust. “Is this about Slav Lily?” His lips curled into a sneer. “I know about you. I know how you trapped her. You think you’re her protector now? She’ll betray you.” He clenched his teeth. He was holding himself in. He wanted to strike, but he also wanted to understand. “Or is this to protect Nash? Is that what this is about? You want to implicate me falsely in a crime so I can be taken out of the great man’s path.” His hands were balled into fists. “I’m an American businessman who made my investors a fortune by buying undervalued foreign assets. Nash became one of those investors. Now he’s the great white hope and I’m a criminal?”
He leapt to his feet. His voice had risen to a shout. I was waiting for the guard to shift his attention to Lime. You can make a weapon out of anything. I had a hand on the back of the sofa, beside a heavy cushion. But the guard didn’t take his eyes off me.
“You’ve come here to attack me,” Lime growled. “To assault me in my home.”
Fencing swords, daggers, pistols, and other weapons hung around the room. Lime stormed to the wall and yanked a six-foot-long curved blade from its hooks. It had a worn leather grip. He grasped it in both hands and swished it back and forth in front of me. The polished steel glinted. He handled the heavy blade as easily as a table knife.
“Russians call this kind of saber a shashka,” he waved the blade back and forth. “Cossacks used these swords to terrify their enemies.”
He cut the blade above my head in a lightning stroke. I felt the swish of air.
“But I’m a fair man,” he smiled. He put the saber on a table. “I’m going to give you better odds.”
The guard must have spotted the words grab the big sword in the thought balloon above my head, because he ditched the baton and grabbed the shashka. He held it like a giant cleaver.
I’d delivered myself on a platter. Even if the concierge called the police, what would he tell them? A guy with Treasury ID might possibly be hassling a resident? They’d send a car, but it wouldn’t be right away.
“Find what you need in here,” Lime said, kicking an equipment box toward me. “And lose the boots.”
He tossed his dressing gown aside and changed into boxing shorts and pulled on a tight pair of fingerless leather gloves. His torso showed signs of the treatment he’d got in the Lubyanka. He approached a heavy bag slung from the ceiling and delivered a rapid combination of punches followed by a lightning blow with his foot.
“This is a country that worships wealth. Yet I’m the bad guy.”
Let him talk. I took off my boots and found a pair of fighting gloves. I watched carefully while Lime demonstrated his prowess, raining blows and terrific kicks on the bag. I learned to fight from an Irishman who worked at one of my father’s bush camps. He’d had his moment in the ring in Cork, but he wasn’t preparing me for the ring. Remember this, Alex. Always box a fighter and fight a boxer. If he’s a street scrapper, hang off and pick his face apart for him But if he fancies himself with the fists, come in close and tear his nuts off.
Even cage fighters have rules. Combinations they like. Lime’s was punch-punch-kick. Punch-punch-kick. I waited until he started again. I launched myself at him in the middle of the second punch, when he was already shifting his weight for the kick. I hit him in the ear twice. He roared with pain. I grabbed his hair and yanked and tried to smash him into the wall. He managed to twist away and cushion with his shoulder when he hit. I was cocked for a throat punch when the goon stepped in and jabbed me with the sword. A searing pan shot up my arm. He had the sword poised for another stab. Lime sprang to his feet and kicked me hard in the ribs, sending me sprawling through the door onto the terrace.
“So, you’re a coward too!” he screamed, storming out after me and driving his foot into my ribs again. “Get up,” he shouted. “Fight!”
When I staggered to my feet he pointed to an octagon laid down in tape.
“That marks the dimensions of a fighting cage. Stay inside the lines or Vasily will cut you again.”
He had his fists up, but this time he didn’t start with a punch. His foot shot out and caught me in the stomach. I reeled backward gasping for breath. He leapt on me and drove a series of elbow punches at my head. I managed to turn my face away and rolled out from under him. I scrambled out of the octagon and looked around for something to throw. The sword tip caught me in the calf. A red-hot pain shot along my leg.
“Inside the lines,” Lime snarled.
I put my hands up and came in carefully.
He kicked at me again. This time I dodged it. I had longer arms, and landed a punch to the side of his head. I thought I’d rocked him, but when I followed with a roundhouse, he ducked it easily and took advantage of my loss of balance by stepping in close and trying to knee me in the groin. I lurched back, and he drove his fist at my throat. I turned away, but a seam on his glove ripped the side of my neck.
“Go ahead,” I panted, backing away, “but you’re finished. We know what you and Nash are up to.” It was a shot in the dark, but I saw the hit go home. He flicked his eyes away from me, only for a fraction of a second before he recovered, but that’s a tell.
He came in fast and jabbed at my face. I protected, and he hit me hard in the stomach. I bent with the pain and he rocked me with an uppercut. I was still protecting with my fists, but his blow smacked them back against my chin and jarred me. He jabbed again with his left and kept his right locked and loaded.
He boxed me steadily back. I saw his eyes flick behind me, followed a second later by a piercing jab from the sword. It caught me behind the hip. I grunted with the pain and reeled out of the octagon. I crashed into the wooden planter where the hedge grew, and would have gone right over if I hadn’t clutched a fistful of branches.
“Oops,” Lime said.
He growled a command to Vasily, who shoved the Ruger into his waistband so he could grip the saber in both hands. That took his eyes off me for a second. I yanked the bush I was holding from the planter and flung it at Vasily’s face. A clod of dirt exploded on his forehead, blinding him for a second. I threw myself at his legs.
He delivered a hammer blow between my shoulders as I collided with his knees. His mistake was trying to hold onto the sword instead of using both hands to break his fall. His head smacked on the bricks. My mistake was grabbing the sword instead of the Ruger.
I scrambled to my feet and hacked at Lime. The long blade was hard to control. I gripped the hilt in both hands and held the blade in front of me.
Lime circled slowly, gauging my awkwardness. He made a feint, and I stepped back and raised the blade high above my head. Too high. The momentum of the heavy blade toppled me backward. The planter caught me behind the knees.
Over I went.
11
I heard Tommy’s voice booming somewhere in the distance. That answered the question: could things get any worse.
A door opened.
“The bodyguard’s got a depressed skull fracture,” DeLucca said. “He’s in bad shape. Lime’s lawyer is screaming attempted murder.”
“I’ll take care of that shyster,” Tommy said. “A Treasury agent in the lawful execution of his duty? By the time I get through with him he’ll be begging to plead out.”
I was face down on a table. I produced a sound to let them know I was conscious.
“Lawful?” DeLucca said.
“He had a warrant,” Tommy grumbled.
“You mean a FISA warrant?”
Tommy ignored him. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is a secret tribunal, and he wasn’t going to tell DeLucca what paperwork we had.
I was in a back room of the Twentieth Precinct on West Eighty-Second Street. A police surgeon had spent an hour on my mouth, repairing the cuts and injecting me with something that had taken down the swelling. The medic finishing the patch-up was the same one who’d treated me after the Brighton Beach operation.
“All the other cuts are superficial,” he sai
d. “I’ve closed them with glue. This one,” he prodded my butt with a blue-gloved finger, “I put a stitch in this one. I think the blade just grazed the sciatic nerve. It’ll hurt for a while.”
“Incontrovertible proof that you are a pain in the ass,” Tommy said.
The design of the Santa Clara had saved my life. Lime’s apartment was on three floors, but the top two were stepped back, the architectural detail that gave the tower its famous wedding-cake silhouette. When I went over the railing I’d landed on the terrace below. I stumbled inside, found the elevator, and hobbled out into the lobby dragging the six-foot blade just as a swarm of cops were coming in the door.
When I’d left her, Tabitha had worried about what I might do. In the morning she’d tried calling, but couldn’t reach me. I’d left my phone in the car. She ordered a GPS location search, and when she saw that it came from just outside Lime’s building, and wasn’t moving, she called Tommy. He called DeLucca, who scrambled a tac squad.
They arrived just as a bleeding crazy man came rushing through the lobby with a sword. They screamed at me to drop the weapon and get down. It had taken DeLucca an hour to get to the precinct and spring me from the holding cell. Tommy was now here to take care of the paperwork and see if he could make my day a little worse.
“You want to talk to the concierge?” DeLucca said to Tommy. “His cell phone shows he called Lime to warn him about Alex. I got him in the cage. Here’s his sheet.”
He tossed a thick wad of pages on the table.
“Let me see that for a sec,” said Tommy. He scrabbled in the breast pocket of his citron-colored bowling shirt. This one had lime-green piping and the name “Cato” stitched on the pocket. He fished out his reading glasses and glanced quickly through a few pages.
“I’ll have a chat with him later,” he said, placing the file on the table and giving it a pat. “I need the exercise. In the meantime,” he turned to me, “where are we with your sparring partner? It would be nice if you actually learned something. Other than that you’re an idiot.”